Jill and Tim

A kilo of foie gras in guatemala?

jillians — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 06:25:00 GMT

Merry Christmas everyone!

Or felize navidad as they say here.

San Pedro is priming itself up for a big one. It is Christmas Eve here, and people are everywhere. Everyone converges on San Pedro, the tourists for two weeks of partying, the Guatemalans from the city (and everywhere else; there are so many different village dresses in town at the moment). I though shopping malls in Australia were busy before Christmas, but you should see the market here, all you can do is stand and wait for the ebb and flow to open a gap as stalls with thingamybobs playing a thousand electronic carols try to drown out the sellers sreaming themselves hoarse with lists of fruit, vegies, fish, live crabs, shampoo, explicit dvds, sacks of spices and dried peppers, plastic toys and banana leaves. I got my fruit for the punch and got out quick.

Meanwhile, the bank in town held a huge party yesterday (yes the bank), in an extravegant display of generosity they gave back a tiny proportion of their profits from freakishly huge interest rates in on big great raffle. For every 200 quetzals (about $30) you have in the bank you get a ticket to win cars, motorbikes, fridges, tvs and the rest. so much stuff it took all day to draw it, two sprukers screamed into their microphones all day, so loud you could hear them a km away, working everyone into a frenzy. It all ended with the best fireworks display I have ever seen...no health an safety, no fire regulations to dull it down just raw sparkling fire power. The explosions sprang out and dropped down right before me. Amazing.

So I think the next couple of days will be exciting. Tonight, even though it is not really Christmas yet we will be having Christmas dinner with some friends of Amanda and Flo, Suvena and another french Flo and their baby Ati. The other french flo's parents are here, complete with a kilo of foie gras. Huezeffa and her kids will be there, which is great because Christmas is not right without a few kids, so everything shall be beautiful.

So Merry Christmas to you all, hope it is sweet.

Lots of love

Jillian

Photos

jillians — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:17:00 GMT

So it has been a hectic last couple of weeks, we left the relative calm of San Pedro, home to Amanda, Flo and Lily to explore a little of Guatemala. I´m trying really hard to get the photos on here, but they take about ten minutes to download just five at a time, and I loose patience pretty quickly. So I have decided to keep this short and just add comments to the photos describing what they are. I have to say that these photos are not the magnificent artworks I had hoped they would be. I look at them now and they kind of seem small and still (oh they are). Trust me Guatemala is much more bright and beautiful. There is also a distinct lack of people shots, I see a thousand great photos everyday, but I´m still figuring out how to take them without being really intrusive, the last girl I tried to take a photo of squealed and covered her face. Or being accused of stealing souls, which a few tourists have been lynched for in the past.

Gallery: Guate Guate!

jillians — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 10:35:00 GMT

friole y arroz

Manhandled by a Grandma

jillians — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:34:00 GMT

Here in San Pedro people say there is a different time scale. San Pedro time is fifteen minutes late, if at all, and it takes alot of thought in the mornings just to figure out what day it is, let alone the date or really just how long we have been here. I think it is two weeks, but correct me if I am wrong. The election came and went while I thought it was still thursday in Australia. Maxine´s seat was well and truely sorted by the time I found out about our new prime minister. It is lovely to know that it´s safe to come home again.

We have filled in our time pretty well here. A week of spanish lessons that has given me enough spanish to waffle out mangled sentences. Next week we will return for another round of lessons with just 3 hours in the morning rather than 4, hopefully we can demangle the sentances a little but. The lessons are in the garden by the lake, with just Tim and I, and out teacher Noberto. We do our best to distract him from grammer with our impressive stories of kangaroos and our questions about the animals here.

But first, before the next round of lessons we are off on a trek for three days. We start in Quetzaltenago and walk back here to Lake Atitlan through the mountains. We will be walking throught the little rural villages, up into cloudforests and down into river valleys, staying with local families on the way. Up in the highlands here is stronghold of the maya, not the spanish, and most of the women still wear the traditional woven fabric skirts and embroidered blouses. Some men still wear the bright woven fabrics with intricate desighs too, but sometimes made into wild west rodeo shirts! What a cultural blend.

We have visited a few different towns over the last few days, and there is a slightly different style of dress in each, along with a different local language, which is generally the first language, not spanish as I thought. And different hights too. I am finally tall in San Pedro, and a giant in Solola! At the local market I tower. Not that anyone is scared, the markets are crowded and squishy, I am pushed and shoved, I turn to see who it was, and time and time again it is a little old lady up to my ribs. It´s a special feeling being manhandled by a grandma!

So for now goodbye

Lot of love

Jillian

50 hours

jillians — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:23:00 GMT

I should really stop rubbing my knuckles and start, but it is very hard to be eloquent with this mish mash in my head. So the very boring 45 hours of waiting came to an abrupt end when we walked out the gates of Guatemala City airport. Straight into a corridor of twenty meters of barricades, with hundreds of guatemalans crammed against them, waiting for their families. I have never felt so tender and pale as every eye watched us stride, I mean scuttle through. Some man took us to his taxi, and we found a common bond in our $US10 bill that transcended language. He took us too a place with a bus, but I doubt it was the same place the lady at the airport calmly told us about. We pulled up and all these men started grabbing at the taxi, opening the doors, shouting I think place names. I really wanted to go back to the lady at the airport for a cuddle, but buck up Jill, we were bundled on a bus to Panajachel (on Lake Atitlan, opposite San Pedro).

The bus, so beautiful, like an old US school bus scrubbed up and painted in colours and patterns and given nice names like Wendy, Hannah or Melissa, then resprayed with mud. We sat there in a kind of delerious state of overtiredness and adrenaline as everyone pretty much ignored us. The driver looked like an old chinese master, the old clunky beast was a dancer under his hands. A boy works the bus with him, collecting money, climbing onto the roof for ongoing repairs, hanging out the door waving back trucks to let us back in the lane if taffic comes.

Through the city, the cloud forest, thousands of people for three hours when we came to the view of the lake. Perhaps the most majestic view I have ever seen, I saw only for a second before I fell into a deep sleep for the exact time of the decent.

Now to San Pedro, the baby, little Lily is of course beautiful. She hardly cries, and when she does she is very lucky to get lots of attention from Amanda and Flo. She will be a happy little girl, because not only does she have the happy Amanda for a mum, but Flo seems also to have this uber happiness. I will get my act together soon and get the photos on here.

Tim and I have started learning spanish at a school here, but we basically keep thanking, greeting and por favoring everyone who speaks to us. I can now get a great Hola.

So Adios,

Jillian